Ian Curteis, the playwright who was commissioned by the BBC to write The Falklands Play as “a national celebration” five years after the conflict, says Baroness Thatcher was “incandescent” when she discovered that the corporation intended to shelve it because it was deemed to be too positive about her.

“It would be a fitting tribute to her if now, after her death, the BBC gave it the prime-time slot that was originally envisaged for it,” Curteis tells Mandrake.

Sir Ronald Millar, Lady Thatcher’s speechwriter, made it clear to Curteis how angry she was that, after he had been invited to write the drama by Alasdair Milne, when he was director-general, executives at the corporation subsequently censored it.

“The BBC instructed me to add some highly tendentious, and I would say actionable, scenes which I refused to do,” Curteis says.

“One was to have identifiable members of Mrs Thatcher’s War Cabinet asking how the conflict would go down with the voters. Lord Lewin, who attended these meetings as Admiral of the Fleet, told me the idea that he would allow anyone to make such crass comments in his presence when lives were at risk was nothing short of obscene.”

Admirably, Curteis stood his ground, and, four days later, the project was abruptly cancelled and the £1.7 million budget written off.

The BBC went on to produce three expensive plays which took the line, as spelled out by the author of one of them, that “The Falklands War [it was never actually classified as a war, rather a conlict] should never have happened, and that it did is a reason for shame, regret and anger.”

Curteis did not, however, give up and, 15 years on, his play was eventually produced, on a tiny budget, and aired late at night on BBC Two to good reviews. Patricia Hodge was highly praised for her performance as Mrs Thatcher.